Do you think it will damage his reputation in the field? After all, Pope always presented himself as the rational, on-the-ground guy; that's why it was sought by the media whenever they needed a talking head for a UFO story.

Well, perhaps. Still, in the article published by The Daily Mail which mentioned Tony Blair and the briefing he demanded from the MoD concerning UFOs, they couldn't resist to mentioning Pope, and repeat those shenanigans about the Olympics.

Remember: there's a difference between how are things viewed among the members of this small community, and how they are consumed at large by the rest of the public.

The way i look at it is like this: like me, Nick has written UFO books and has to do self-promotion. Indeed, in any self-employed job, whether author, electrician, plumber or anything else, you have to self-promote for business reasons. But, for me, the Olympics thing was just plain daft. Of course aliens wont invade the Olympics. For me, that was crossing the line into speculation about something that simply will NOT happen. It didn't offend me. I laughed at it because I thought it was an absurd scenario. I dont think it harms Pope's reputation because the public wont remember because its just another quirky news story among 100s every day. Ufologists wont consider it having any real impact on Ufology because it's a minor, odd story, and I'm pretty sure it will all be forgotten about after the Olympics (if not already).